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How Social Media Can Enhance Your Candidate Search

By Augusta Henning posted 10-22-2019 10:33

  

It’s 2019 and social media is more prominent than ever in our daily liveseven in the recruitment process! With political tension rife in the U.S. and employment at a record high, hiring professionals are under more pressure than ever to come up with innovative ways to enhance their candidate search.  

If you’re struggling to attract more applicants to your vacancies; you may want to consider how you promote your current job offerings. Social media is a convenient and easy tool to enhance your candidate search, so why not consider using it as part of your hiring strategy 

After all, many of the candidates you can source through Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter could never be found through traditional sources; which is why every company should have a social media recruitment strategy. It helps to expand and diversify your talent pool; particularly when it comes to targeting passive candidates. 

Although it can be difficult to master, there’s no denying that social media is a super handy tool. Millennials are fast forming the backbone of the U.S. workforce and 79% of them use social media several times a day.  

If you want to know more about how social media can enhance your candidate search, then read on! 

Screen Candidates 

While candidate applications, cover letters and resumes are all great for finding out more about a candidate’s suitability for a role, checking out their social media profiles can really enhance your candidate search. As many people forget to tighten security settings, you can often view everything from their hobbies and interests, to their location.  

Therefore, you can gauge a better idea of how the candidate may perform in your company, or if they’ll be a liability. Watch out for offensive posts, aggressive language, bad spelling and grammar and references to drug use.  

Observing candidates’ social media should, however, only be used in tandem with their official application. Otherwise, you could fall foul to hiring bias. 

Promote Jobs on Your Social Networks  

It’s easy and free to promote your jobs on social networks (unless you want to pay extra for a boosted post). As well as on your careers page, openings can be posted all over Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. 

This has the added benefit of increasing exposure. Not only will your job listings be shown to all your followers, they may be liked, shared or retweeted. Therefore, you’ll receive plenty of exposure at no additional cost to your company; and your vacancy is more likely to be seen by the ideal candidate!  

Make Genuine Connections  

Social media enables you to get a further and more accurate reach, targeting passive candidates as well as active. 

In addition, the connections that you make are more likely to be genuine. When communicating with potential candidates, you’re able to avoid the spam and get a higher response rate. You can keep in contact with people directly and expand your talent pool.  

Candidates Can Come to You  

When you have a strong social media presence, you’re also improving your employer brand. Your company becomes more recognizable and candidates are more likely to spot your job adverts.  

Social media is simply an extension of your careers page, so your job adverts should always be displayed on both platforms (as well as on job boards) 

Moreover, while a passive candidate may not check your careers page, they may still pick up on adverts posted on social media. This approach requires minimum effort from your company, but it maximizes your chances of hiring high-quality candidates!  

Want to Enhance Your Candidate Search? 

If social media isn’t already part of your recruitment strategy, then it needs to be. The use of social media in hiring has grown exponentially over the past few years and as more people realize its benefits, this will only rise.  

However, with the various hot platforms available to use, it can be tricky to know how to incorporate it into your strategy. To get started, determine your goals and update your approach. Then, you can begin to tap into the right platforms and use our tips to enhance your candidate search.  

When you’ve solidified your strategy, don’t forget that consistency is key. The clue is in the word ‘social’. Continue to engage your social media audience and watch the candidates come to you! 

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